


the creation of scars

by mellowheart



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I Dont Ship It But I Love Lauren So
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 06:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellowheart/pseuds/mellowheart
Summary: When Lydia goes through something traumatizing, Stiles helps her out a little.





	the creation of scars

            **Lydia Martin was on the verge** of letting out all the screams that ravaged in her head. Ever since the night of Beacon Hills High School’s dance, when she’d gotten ambushed and bit by the monstrosity that was Peter Hale’s alpha form, she had gotten somewhat accustomed to the voices in her head; at first, everyone told her she was insane, but recently, the theory that she was psychic came into play. Sure, finding dead bodies before anyone else did was a good cause for suspicion, but Lydia? A psychic? No, absolutely not. She’d rather be crazy than some Raven Baxter wannabe.

            In fact, the voices weren’t really voices at all - they were a multitude of sounds, and arrived unpredictably. Lydia remembered the day when the school bells rang in her ears like someone had stuffed them inside her brain (she had half-expected to look down and see claws protruding from her fingers) - everything she could hear was projected, putting her on the edge for several class periods and giving her a headache so intense that she passed out. She had woken up with a head clear of skull-shattering sounds, but the ache in her head was still there, because according to Stiles Stilinski’s panicked voice when he had finally shook her awake, she had hit her head really hard. When she’d been led by the sound of chirping birds in her head to the body of an omega werewolf, Scott and Stiles at her side, she’d been almost relieved at how instantly the chirping stopped.

            The gouged out eyes of the omega and the deep claw marks across their chest, with birds pecking away at the decaying flesh in the eye sockets, had made Lydia wish that the incessant chirping in her ear was back.

            When she’d found out about werewolves and the dark side of the supernatural world, all spawning from the Nemeton in the forest that surrounded the destroyed Hale house, she’d felt better about her strange experiences; the girl didn’t know what she was, exactly, but she wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in comparison to the various beasts that had spawned in Beacon Hills. She was something, at least. If her genius IQ wasn’t the cause of the voices that led Lydia to macabre, stomach-churning visuals, then perhaps the werewolves of the town had answers for her.

            In other words, no one had a clue what she was, besides the obvious: popular, beautiful, smart. It was exhausting, being Queen Bee and Queen Freak at the same time. Lydia was tired of the voices, tired of the stares, and most importantly, tired of Jackson Whittemore. Her boyfriend was a sob story about long lost parents blanketed in privilege, arrogance, and a deep-seated bitterness towards Lydia; so when he wasn’t kissing her gently and telling her she was the most beautiful person in the world, he was lashing out at her, blaming her for everything from lost lacrosse games to his failed attempt to turn into a werewolf. Back then, she didn’t understand why he was blaming her for “ruining everything,” as he’d so explicitly put it, but Lydia knew it was a big deal to him, because he’d dragged her to the wall and directed all his anger at her; the vibrating rage and the accusatory finger Jackson had pointed at her made her heart clench painfully every time her mind flashed back to it.

            But on this night in particular, he’d pushed her to the brink of the edge, to the point where she was shivering while she sat on her bed, trying not to scream the neighborhood awake. Every hair stood on end, the novel she’d been interested in starting laid untouched on her desk, and tears painted long tracks of mascara on the canvas that was her pale cheeks. She’d run out of waterproof mascara a couple days before, and when she’d taken a peek at herself in the mirror, she’d seen a stranger. Lydia had seen a pathetic amalgamation of red eyes, wet cheeks, deathly pale skin; the teenager had always thought of herself as the poster child of confidence, her head standing proudly on her shoulders no matter what was occurring in her life. But now? She didn’t even want to look at herself.

            Unsurprisingly, the source of Jackson’s explosive temper was lacrosse. It seemed like it was always lacrosse, whether it was a lost game, Scott showing him up on the field, or something as simple as his lacrosse stick getting damaged. This time, it wasn’t any of those things; she originally thought that he was in a bad mood, because the moment the game ended, he dragged her to his car, his lips tightened into a thin line. His grip was relentless, and because Lydia didn’t want to cause a scene, she kept her voice low enough to not garner attention but loud enough for her boyfriend to hear over the chattering students.

            “Jackson,” she’d said, keeping up with his pace and trying not to trip over her heels at the same time. “Jackson, what are you doing? There’s a party at-”

            He paused a few feet in front of the sleek Porsche, whirling to face her and - finally - letting go of her arm. There was hurt shining in his eyes, his face flushed from more than the exertion of running back and forth across a lacrosse field for forty-eight minutes. Lydia pulled her coat tighter around herself, brushing a strand of hair from her view and meeting Jackson’s gaze; although guilt swirled in the pit of her stomach, she huffed indignantly and rolled her eyes.

            “I don’t see why-”  
  
            “You know _exactly_ what you did, Lydia,” Jackson hissed, fury transforming his features once more.

            “I don’t, actually - care to enlighten me, sweetheart?” Lydia replied with fake sweetness wrapping around her words. “Because from where I’m standing, you look like a lunatic, dragging me to your car in front of the majority of the student body. So please tell me _exactly_ what I-”

            Pain suddenly flared on Lydia’s left cheek, and she was at a loss for words. She put a hand over where her boyfriend had just slapped her, simultaneously trying to get over her disbelief and hold back tears. The tear ducts were begging to spring a leak, but she fought against the urge, because her dead body would be found in a lake before she let herself cry in front of the boy who’d hurt her countless times, or what should’ve been countless times - the word “countless” implied that she didn’t remember each of Jackson’s outbursts like the back of her hand. And Lydia could more than count the instances - she could list them in chronological order like she was outlining a biography.

            Jackson not only grabbed onto one wrist, but two, the dark look in his eye frightening her more than the yellow, reptilian gaze of the Kanima ever could. “The way you cheered on McCall, holding up your pretty little signs with Allison? Never again, you hear me?”

            The prick of his claws bloomed even more pain in her wrists, and Lydia nodded, her breaths frantic. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice, anyway. When he let go, a cruel smirk forming on his lips despite the anger in his eyes, she felt trickles of blood starting to run down her forearms; Jackson walked around to the other side of the car, leaving Lydia to try her best to calm her heartbeat and pushed her coat sleeves back down her wrists. She caught a glimpse of dark red blood, but she pretended like she didn’t opening the car door and sitting in the passenger seat, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened between the two.

            And on the drive back to her house, during which Jackson turned on the radio and started a new conversation with her, Lydia almost believed the caring facade that had suddenly masked his face.

*  
            **It had only been twenty minutes** since Jackson had dropped her off, fifteen since she’d told her mom she was just tired when she expressed concern, and five since she’d broken down into tears. The state of her wrists when she’d first took her coat off was gory, the blood almost covering the shallow gouges from Jackson’s claws; the tiny wounds circled her wrists like bracelets, and when she began dabbing away the blood with a wet towel, Lydia sobbed at the sting, her chin wobbling from the effort to keep her cries quiet enough to not wake up her mother. She trusted her mother with everything she had within her, but she couldn’t know about this. Lydia wanted to handle this her own, with as little drama as possible.

            Lydia was wrapping the last of the bandages around one of her wrists, red spots bleeding through from the movement, when she heard a knock on her bedroom door. She cursed under her breath, scanning the room for a hoodie when her eyes locked on one draped over her desk chair. Being as careful as possible to not stress her injuries, she slipped it over her head. When another knock sounded hollowly against the wooden surface, she rushed toward her mirror, taking a makeup wipe from its container and starting to dab around the more tragic looking parts of her complexion.

            “Just a minute, Mom!” she called out, erasing the black streaks from her cheeks.

            “It’s, uh,” a male voice said. “Stiles, actually, but I’ll take whatever acknowledgment I can get, really.”

            _Stiles? For fuck sake_ , Lydia thought with an eye roll, dropping the used wipe onto her dresser and stomping towards the door.

            “Hey, Lyds,” Stiles said, looking instantly apologetic when met with her terrifying, green-eyed glare. “You okay?”

           “I’m fine,” she responded, and plastered a sarcastic smile on her face, starting to close the door. “Thanks for checking in.”

            Stiles made a noise of disapproval, pushing the door back open with his foot. “Ah, ah, ah - I don’t think so, Lydia Martin. What’s bugging you? I saw Jackson kind of drag you away from the game, so I figured something was wrong. And you’re kind of pale...no offense.”

            Lydia deflated, closing her eyes with a groan. “Don’t make me regret this.” Then she stepped aside and motioned her hand to the inside of her room.

            He tugged on the cuffs of his flannel, suddenly looking nervous as he stepped inside the room. Stiles Stilinski was the complete opposite of Jackson, composed of limbs too long for his body to handle, an endless amount of words flowing from his mouth at what seemed like all times, and a heart too big for his skinny frame. The boy was a fountain of energy, comic book references, and witty quips; as a freshman with a mighty reputation to build in her high school years, Lydia decided quickly that he was to be avoided at all costs. Also, outcast-ism was a very real thing.

            She sat on her bed and motioned Stiles to follow, speaking before his posterior hit the mattress. “Jackson and I got into an argument tonight.”

            Stiles turned himself so he was facing her more, one leg slid under the other as his black Converse knocked against the side of the bed. He nodded and distractedly scratched at the back of his neck, motioning with a long-fingered hand to go on.

            “And...” Lydia trailed off, and pulled at the bottom of her hoodie, starting to pull it off her body.

            “ _Whoa_ , alright th-”

            “Shut up,” she said, and then dropped the pink fabric on the floor, holding out her bandaged wrists.

            His face instantly fell, and she winced a little when he took her wrists in his hands; Stiles’ eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he inspected the blood bleeding through the bandage, caressing over the spots with his thumbs. He was reverent in his touch, careful as he unraveled one of the bandages.

            “Jesus Christ...Jackson did this?” Stiles asked. Although his tone was calm, he looked up at her with squinted eyes, a glare that she knew was not for her. Lydia nodded, feeling at ease when faced with the kindness that spiraled in those light brown eyes of his.

            He scoffed in disbelief, shaking his head, before meeting her gaze again. “If you don’t kick his ass all the way to Topeka, I’ll just have to do it for you - I mean, we have werewolf friends for this very reason.”

            Lydia laughed, a genuine smile gracing her features. Then her eye skimmed down the smooth surface of the bat that leaned against the wall in the corner, and felt a douse of mischief spread over her heart, making her grin grow even wider.

            “Don’t worry,” she said slyly. “I have a idea.”


End file.
